Comments by "MarcosElMalo2" (@MarcosElMalo2) on "Amanpour and Company" channel.

  1. This is the first I have heard of the Maryland NG and police being delayed. What in the fucking fuck?
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  2. Not just murder, but Treason. How else do you describe a violent physical attack on a coequal branch of government that was in the act of counting electoral votes? This was an attack on our nation as surely as was Pearl Harbor or 9/11.
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  3. Most of them are “rich” people. Middle class, business owners and professionals. A cadre of militia losers. New Age Wellness Gurus excited by “Trump’s Ideas”. A lot of grifters that finally got taken in by their own grift.
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  4.  @Beginstheman  American conservative here. I left the GOP in 2006, at a time when to oppose the military/CIA torture of enemy combatants was to earn the label RINO. In a way that was a shock, in another way it wasn’t. As a minority American, I had already found myself at odds with a coagulating racist tendency within the GOP. And there was something primally racist and tribal about that torture—while the administration was trying to justify certain methods of torture as “enhanced interrogation”, there was a large number of Republicans that both recognized it as torture, yet were clamoring for even harsher torture for their/our perceived mortal enemies, Arabs and Muslims. Arabs and Muslims were cast as villains, ideological/existential enemies, and less than human, at best ungrateful for the gift of freedom we brought to them in the form of war. I left the GOP not because I opposed the war (I was initially for it), not because the Bush administration was grossly incompetent after the successful invasion, but because of the rank-and-file hunger for torture for tortures sake. It was the final straw. Back to our internal issues. I highly recommend reading Ta Nehisi-Coates article in the Atlantic on Trump being the first “White President”. He points out that Trump won a majority of white voters, not just the demographic of “white males without a college degree” or “the white working class”. Trump won a majority of white voters from every economic slice. (And I’ll gratefully acknowledge the substantial minority of white voters that did not support Trump. #NotAllWhiteVoters support Trump, and are firmly part of the the multiracial coalition we call the Democratic Party.) Why this overwhelming support by White Americans that crosses economic classes? The economic uncertainty argument falls apart, so what is the cause of white support for an authoritarian and an authoritarian party? I think it’s fear of social displacement and, even deeper, a fear of racial revenge .If you carefully question (not badger or argue, but probe) Trump supporting whites, you’ll find many express fears of racial revenge. You can hear this in their protestation that they shouldn’t be held accountable for the crimes of their forefathers and in their demands that slavery happened a long time ago and African Americans should just get over it already. Cutting to the heart of it, one can hear it in their hysterical reaction to BLM and demands for fairness, justice and equality; they have a hysterical but deeply felt fear that fairness, justice, and equality is an existential threat to their physical safety, their very survival. This is the unconscious guilt of the racial atrocities upon which our country was built, and the fear it engenders is exactly what Trump and the GOP use to maintain a hold on power.
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  5. Gingrich, the Buchanons.
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  6. I can’t say that I feel a great deal of compassion for those wholeheartedly back a violent racist ideology, but I think I understand the nature of their fear: it’s an existential crisis. Their image of themselves is under threat, which they experience as the threat of annihilation. But compassion? Its like trying to feel compassion for a stampeding herd of steer that’s coming at you. I’ll feel compassion after they’ve safely passed and gone over their cliff.
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  7.  @michaelseymour6313  That is all bullshit, and you should know it. If there was this “bipartisan 3rd party audit”, do you suppose that would stop the lies about fraud and conspiracy? Do you not yet get that when you refute a conspiracy nut with evidence, that they merely add another layer of conspiracy to their cake of delusion? Did you miss out on the fact that there were audits by their own party that they dismissed as another layer of the conspiracy against them?
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  8. Trump is worse than Manson. This isn’t hyperbole. Yes, the blood of two people are on Trump’s hands because they died during the commission of this criminal act. But let’s be clear about the act. The President attempted to overthrow the Congress with violent force. He attempted to stop them from doing their constitutional duty by ordering a murderous mob to attack the Capitol Building. That constitutional duty was specifically counting the electoral vote, part of the “sacred” democratic process enshrined in the Constitution. If I had not seen it with my own eyes, I would accuse myself of heated rhetoric over abstract concepts, but here it is, as real as I can make it: Trump attacked our Constitution, our democracy, and our nation with murderous intent. His attack was every bit as grievous an assault on us as Pearl Harbor or 9/11.
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  9. I was in college during the Reagan years and became a Republican in California. The majority of my friends were to the left of center, whether or not actually registered as Democrats (sadly, then as now, too many college age folks didn’t vote). As someone who tried to be active in state and local politics, I encountered a lot of racism and the “recessive gene”, both subtle and overt. I often felt like a token minority, a thing to be displayed to ward of accusations of racism. Very few white Republicans were interested in the opinions and concerns of minority conservatives. I hoped I could help change this from within the party. “Be the change you want to see,” as the saying goes. By the late 90s I was exhausted by the hypocrisy. Most of my fellow Republicans seemed to lack the capacity for self examination; expressing concerns about racism was considered disloyal, even in private. I stopped being active. I held out hope for GWB, but after 9/11, the racism of the GOP came out of hiding. Finally, when the Abu Graib scandal came out, and most of the GOP was engaged in defending torture, I had enough. I don’t think Bush was evil or stupid, but he was weak. He was a disappointment. (I secretly voted for Kerry in 2004.) While I’ve never registered for the Democratic Party, I unregistered as a Republican. Most of my voting and support since has been for Democrats (with a few votes here and there for independents). I voted for Clinton in 2016. In my experience, the GOP was already on its current trajectory back in the 90s. I especially point the finger at Newt Gingrich, whose scorched earth policy and intolerance created the original divide in America that would pave the way for Trump in 2016.
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  10. Yes, but . . You’re not confronting the matter of whom the GOP is addressing, what the GOP message is that strikes a chord with their audience, and what is in the nature of that audience that is receptive to the the GOP message. Shall we start with the GOP audience? Those that vote for Trump? Trump’s popularity is blamed on the White Working Class, often coded as white men without a college degree. But we know that among whites of every economic class and education level, Trump won a majority. The overwhelming majority of GOP voters are white. That’s just a fact. (Credit where credit is due: #NotAllWhiteVoters supported Trump. Even some Republican voters split the ticket and voted for Biden.) Or shall we start with the Trump GOP message? What was Trump’s signature issue in 2016? What was his signature issue in 2020? What do those messages have in common? Was it “Drain the Swamp”? This issue is not unique to Trump nor is it exclusive to the GOP. It’s a conventional, if useful, political message: clean up government corruption. No specific plan or policy was attached. No, in 2016 it was “Build the Wall”. This was a specific proposal to address a specific (if ginned up) issue and also advocated for specific policies, including “Mexico will pay for it”. The issue was immigration across our Southern border, from countries that weren’t white. As the presidency unfolded, we saw worse policies such as family separation, that apparently Trump voters accepted, even lauded. In 2020, Trump has campaigned for “Law and Order”, specifically in response to BLM protests across the country. Trump and the GOP have inflamed the protests and incited violence while whipping up fear and anger against Americans seeking fairness, justice, and equality. There have been a lot of specifics hidden in the dog whistles: “those people” will invade suburbia, for example. Is it unreasonable to see a link between these two appeals to White voters? Is it overreaching to say these two appeals are really a single appeal, a racist appeal to white voters? Is there a reasonable argument that the Trump GOP wasn’t stoking racial fears? Now we arrive at the third point. Why do messages of racial fear score so successfully with Trump supporters? Why are they receptive to such arguments? We can say that the GOP has cultivated and refined this fear over the last 10 or 20 years, but we need to go deeper to understand why the GOP racial messaging resonates with white voters in the first place. If you carefully question a Trump supporter about their fears (and I don’t mean challenge, or debate, or accuse), there is a fear of social displacement. It’s incorrect to equate this with so-called economic anxiety. The idea behind the cries of “they will not replace us” and “they’re stealing our jobs” is essentially a fear that whites will lose their first-in-line social position, that if there is equality, whites won’t be able to compete. (Do I need to point out this is an anti-conservative idea?) But it goes further than that. The 2020 message of the Trump GOP is that calls for fairness, justice, and equality are an existential threat to individual survival, that minorities will kill whites if allowed to get out of hand, and thus violence is justified against peaceful protests? As illogical and bereft of evidence as this appeal is, it strikes a deep chord, a sincere fear with the Trump voter. Question a Trump voter about these fears without triggering their defensive mechanisms and you find something interesting. Some will come right out and say it, others will couch their fear in terms that dance around it. They fear being the victims of racial revenge. That they will be slaughtered, tortured, marginalized just as they have historically slaughtered, tortured, and marginalized non-whites. You can hear it in the protests that they should not be held accountable for the atrocities committed by their ancestors. You can hear it in their demands that African Americans get over slavery which happened “a long time ago”. The basis of Trump and the Trump GOP’s power is a deep and usually unconscious guilt over racial atrocities that prevents them from seeing ongoing racial injustice, indeed that foments racial hate to avoid the pain of confronting that guilt. The appeal of Trump is the appeal of escaping accountability.
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  11. This. And it’s not a mere wave, it’s a tsunami. This isn’t a “surge”, this is the predicted outcome when flattening-the-curve efforts are halted.
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  12. Trump’s shuffling of the defense department isn’t getting the generals on his side. Nor do the troops support him (which is why the GOP has tried to disqualify military overseas votes). Don’t worry about the military backing a coup.
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  13. Maybe. Or maybe Trump is soaking his followers, trying to extract every last dime from his rubes.
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  14. I would make a distinction between Graham and McConnell, because Graham continued to lie about the election, while McConnell acknowledged the election results. Hold McConnell responsible politically for being a rat bastard, but he’s done nothing illegal or seditious. The way to punish McConnell is to increase the number of Democratic Senators in 2022. Graham needs to answer some questions and needs to be held accountable for his involvement in trying to undermine a free and fair election.
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  15. One of the great ironies is that the expansion of NATO, which was a valid Russian concern (although arguably overblown), is more justified and more likely. Putin’s criminal aggression against Ukraine pushes Finland and Sweden towards NATO membership for their own safety and sovereignty, fulfilling Russia’s worst fears. Additionally, it seems unlikely that Russia will have a seat at the UN Security Council. This calls into question the basic intelligence of those pro-Putin GOP politicians that extoll Putin’s “smarts”—not to mention their own commitments to democracy.
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  16. I don’t know what you mean by “true leftist”, but there is overlap between liberal and conservative principles and ideals. We’re not all libertarians. We believe in limited government but we do believe in government. We agree about the goals of our constitutional government as laid out in the Preamble of the Constitution. We just believe in a different path to accomplish those goals. There is a built in tension in society between the rights of the individual and the needs of the whole society. A conservative puts more emphasis on the individual while a liberal puts more emphasis on collective society. Liberals and conservatives complement each other, and for decades we have worked together, groping towards the future. It can seem chaotic, compromise and deal making is required, and the politics can get quite hardball. But that’s the nature of the Democracy that both conservatives and liberals hold dear. I’m talking about my ideal of conservatism. In practice we fall short, just as the liberals do in their ideals. But to be clear, I do not think the maga movement is conservative in anything but name. Because to a maga person, the identity is all that matters, not the principles of either conservatism or of our constitutional democratic republic. Most of all, I think that the magas are guilty of the sin of sloth, because it’s easier to embrace their demented identity than it is to be an authentically good person. They’d rather shit in their pants than get up off the couch to help a neighbor in need or ease the suffering of others. Empathy requires effort, and they can’t be bothered.
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  17. Florida? Yeah, I think I’d be cool with that. Why? Do you know someone who wants it? That said, I don’t think Ukraine should be forced to give up any territory to placate a murderous aggressor.
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  18.  @User-t-f4b  The Russian population isn’t saying that. They can’t, they’ve been silenced. Putin’s government has the only voice in Russia—when others try to be heard, they are arrested. If you want “the other side”, go watch Russian propaganda.
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  19. AFAIK, there’s only one stubborn Republican left, Michael Steele. All the other founders and key figures have foresworn the Republican Party, and Steve Schmidt registered as a Democrat because, he says, the Democratic Party is the only major pro democracy party, and preserving democracy is his single most important issue. None have renounced their conservatism, nor should they. They all seem to realize that American democracy is foundational to both American conservatism and American liberalism.
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  20. Charlie had called the MAGA cult “clowns with flamethrowers”. It’s practically his trademark phrase.
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  21.  @sueToby3  I disagree in part. The GOP is trying to ride this beast, thinking they can control it. They’re not spreading it, they’re trying to direct it. The fear/hatred spreads itself—it’s a subconscious fear. It’s when it breaks through the surface of consciousness (or threatens to break through) that people act violently. It’s a biological response. Put another way, the GOP and the Right Wing Propaganda machine aren’t telling people what to think. They’re putting into words (describing) what this group is already feeling. That’s the attempt to harness it. “Here is what you are feeling (unbearable fear) and here is what you can do to stop feeling it.” The revenge fantasy is added spice (and also mostly subconscious). Incidentally, I’m a conservative. What we are witnessing is white supremacy fighting for its life. I’m familiar with racism and bigotry, I was aware that systemic racism was inbuilt into the system, but I had no idea that the “values” of white supremacy were so deeply ingrained in white America. By “values”, I mean fears. What we are witnessing is not about liberal economics vs conservative ones.
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  22. It’s true that Trump has a thin skin. He’s very weak and his greatest fear is that people will see the weakness behind his posturing and bragging. But there’s a logic behind his combativeness (a logic that’s not winning him the election). Whenever he plays the victim goes on the attack, he rouses the emotions of his base. The more vile his attack, the more vile the emotions he provokes, and the more powerful he feels. This is the secret to the crazy loyalty of his hardcore supporters. He not only gives them permission to be their vilest, worse selves, he enables it.
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  23.  @phyllisneal8687  if only that were the case. They’re using this purported eroticism to ban the book for ideological reasons. If it was just a matter of nudity and community standards, maybe there could be a discussion on whether the book was appropriate, but the argument isn’t being brought in good faith. The true intention is to remove material that undermines the performative resentments of white supremacists.
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  24.  @giovannadedomenicis2149  It’s called radicalization, and a lot of our assumptions are being thrown out the window with regards to what sort of people are targets of radicalization. These aren’t disenfranchised people unable to speak for themselves, but they have a perception of grievance and a self image of victimhood that has been amplified on a daily basis these past four years. The repetition of angry rhetoric works, especially when it excuses the worst character defects of the listener or confirms a preexisting world view they might have been embarrassed to express before. I’m not an expert, but there’s a lot of literature on the subject already. These past four years are going to generate a lot more analysis, too.
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  25. Muks. Call him Muks.
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  26.  @76482  The groundwork for Trumpism was laid out two different times. First was the Southern Strategy that embraced racism to lure Democrat voters and politicians to the GOP. The second was Newt Gingrich becoming Speaker of the House in 1994 and his strategy of total war against Democrats. There was an internal attempt in 2012 to reform the party, make it more inclusive, and jettison the racism. You know what happened: the grassroots of the GOP rejected this and nominated Trump. We now call this grassroots “Trump’s base” of support. This is why I think the GOP, of which I was once a member, is past redemption. It’s firmly in the grasp of racists and fascists—not just the politicians, but (the real power) rank and file Republicans. I know that they’re not all like that, but many are, enough to maintain control of the GOP. The best hope is to peel away the non-racist, non-authoritarian, non-delusional members of the GOP. The Lincoln Party has been doing this, playing their part in electing Joe Biden and now fighting in Georgia to defeat Loeffler and Purdue. There are principles of democracy that are the foundation for both American liberalism and American conservatism. It’s these democratic principles that give meaning to our patriotism and guide our great republic (see what I did there? I’m being as inclusive AF). Keep hammering at these American principles and you’ll keep a small but steady stream of conservatives leaving the GOP and voting for Democratic candidates.
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  27. Some Texas hospitals have stopped reporting data after reaching 100% ICU saturation. (And after a meeting with Texas Governor Abott and hospital CEOs.)
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  28. I’ll go you one further (and I’m speaking as an ex-Republican). The GOP didn’t just recruit the racists and extremists. It cultivated them. It created them over the course of the past 30 years. There was a rival tendency in the GOP to grow the party by appealing to minorities. They attempted to lead the party along that path when McCain lost to Obama. Unfortunately, the cancer of racism and authoritarianism was already too deeply rooted. The monster of fascism had broken from its bonds and was now the party. And the GOP elected a monster, a criminal, a demagogue that gave them permission to be monsters.
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  29.  @emislive  conceding something you didn’t really want or didn’t think you were going to get seems like good negotiating. However, changing Ukraine’s constitution with some sort of pledge to never join NATO would be giving in too much to a tyrant.
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  30. Donate $5 or $10 to the Lincoln Project. He’ll appreciate that a lot more than a beer!
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  31. Lazy and, I’m sorry to say, overwhelmingly of a particular skin pigment. This can’t be blamed solely on the white working class or “white males without college degrees”. Trump got the majority of votes from every category of white voter, no matter how you slice it. I think this belies the “economic uncertainty” myth, and starts uncovering the real fears that but autocracy in play: fear of social displacement. There is a reason that Trump supporters sound hysterical about BLM: they’re hysterically fearful of being the victims of revenge by non-whites for the centuries of abuse perpetrated on non-whites. If one carefully questions Trump supporters (not argue, but probe them for their underlying fears), you find that calls for fairness, justice, and equality are perceived as threats to their physical safety. It’s true that Trump stokes these fears and manipulates them, but these fears were there broadly among American whites. It also should be obvious that not all white people are subject to these fears. The flip side is that despite a majority of white voters supporting Trump, a large minority did not.
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  32. And a few that were outside the building: the ones that sent the murderers there.
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  33. He’s an American, having chosen his country over his party. While he hasn’t joined the Democratic Party, he supports it because the Democrats still hold on to the democratic principles that are the foundation of our country, and that underlie both liberal and conservative perspectives. He’s focused on our shared values, because even the most staunch conservative’s principles have more in common with AOC than they do with the fascist Trumpers. (I’m quite happy with Joe Biden, but I’d rather see a President Bernie Sanders than another four years of Trump, and I’d rather see AOC in the White House than Don, Jr.)
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  34. Don’t hold your breath. I think we’re better carving out a center/moderate niche in the Democratic Party. The Trump party is not worth fighting over, it’s worthy of being destroyed. On a regional basis (ie, red states) it makes sense to run Dem candidates that are right of center. Maybe someday, years from now, there will be a viable conservative party. But the GOP is toxic slag.
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  35.  @michaelhapgood782  Antifa isn’t much of a thing; as a quasi-organization with extremely low numbers it’s neither an effective tool for anything, nor a threat to our country (white supremacist organizations and militias are the real threat). BLM and protesting in general are real things that are promoting our democratic ideals. But to get back to the point, the vote isn’t our only weapon, but it’s the most effective weapon for the people to continue democracy.
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  36. David Renton and how is that relevant to the COVID-19 crisis?
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  37. @Renoir Oh, I’m sure they’re protecting the supply lines. The problem is, they’re not able to keep the supplies moving. Some are saying that the Russians are still preparing for the assault on Kiev and that this is normal. It’s not normal for your super long convoy to be stalled or moving so slowly as we are seeing. Other people wonder why the convoy isn’t being destroyed while it is vulnerable. But it’s defended by air defenses and troops on the ground. The Ukrainians are able to pick off vehicles with drone strikes, but it’s slow going and not all vehicles are vulnerable to the drone weaponry.
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  38. This Moritz cat is a an investor, looking for the next big thing. He invests in 20 companies, hoping one is a big success. Say what you will about the VC class, but they encourage and invest in entrepreneurs.
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  39. Where did you hear that? It’s not true.
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  40.  @justanotherhuman4615  Rudy was the last person who had his hands on it, if it existed at all.
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  41. What border crossing to you plan to use? Here’s the thing about “medical tourism” and bringing your own car. If the entire point is to save money, consider that you’ll be required to buy extra insurance to drive in Mexico. Your normal car insurance won’t cover it. Consider that you’ll have to pay for a temporary permit for your car. These costs will eat into whatever you hope to save by using the lower cost medical services. However, if you are planning on combining your medical tourism with conventional tourism, it might be worth it. That said, the Mexican border cities are the dangerous ones and are (imho) of limited tourist interest. If you are in California or Arizona and just want to take a vacation, here’s a hot tip: Cross Border Express. It’s just to the East of San Diego. It’s a special border crossing for the Tijuana airport. Once you are in the Tijuana airport, flying to various Mexican cities is a domestic flight—much cheaper than flying from a U.S. airport if you use one of the low cost Mexican airlines like Volaris. Once you are at your destination in Mexico, use taxis or Uber for local travel and use Executive Class or First Class buses to travel between cities rather than renting a car. The Executive Class buses like ETN are pretty nice, and First Class buses like Omni aren’t bad. I travel from L.A. to San Diego on the Amtrak Coastliner, then take either a shuttle or an Uber to CBX. At CBX, I cross the border, go through Mexican customs and immigration, and then fly to my destination. I generally wait for Volaris to have a sale. I’ve paid as little as $70 each way, flying from Tijuana to the Leon airport.
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  42. Pretty sure he did just that.
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  43. You will turn yourself into a pretzel trying to follow the logic. But it makes sense when you realize these folks are developmentally arrested in a moral/psychological sense at the age of four years old. Their moral reasoning is stuck at, or has reverted to, that if a toddler.
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  44. 100%, but I tell you that the crime here is magnitudes more heinous than garden variety institutionalized racism. The racism you rightly note is the insult heaped atop the injury. The injury is that the head of the Executive Branch sent a mob to attack a coequal branch (Congress) to prevent them from doing their constitutionally ordained duties. This act is a direct attack on our Constitution and democracy. It’s an attack on our nation just as surely as Pear Harbor or 9/11 was. Trump and his minions are guilty of High Treason, and if there is an example of a higher level of treason in our nation’s history, I’d like to know it. That’s the bigger context. A murder of a police officer and the death of a member of the white nationalist mob occurred in the commission of this crime. The crime came closer to success because of white privilege. All of that is true. But remember with clarity that Trump attempted to overthrow the Congress and the democratic vote with violent force.
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  45. He’s attacking imaginary evil rather than addressing actual evil in an effective way. The thing that makes Desantis worse than you is that he knows it’s imaginary—he’s doing it just to get your juices flowing, to get you excited, and then to vote for him. You at least have the excuse that your ignorant and gullible. He doesn’t.
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  46. Your date is incorrect if you’re referring to the Holodomor. That occurred in 1931-32.
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  47.  @Combatwhombat  I agree 100% with the op. And you’re right that the GOP needs to lose until it self corrects. But I don’t think it will self correct. I don’t know how we conservatives will manage it, but we need to find a political home. It wasn’t too long ago that the Democratic Party had a conservative wing. They acted as a restraint or a counterbalance to the progressive wing of the Dems. Most of them were forced out like we’ve seen MAGA force out the sane conservatives from the GOP. I don’t know if we can find a home in the Democratic Party, but I don’t have any better ideas. I just know that I cannot support any candidate that has supported MAGAZ or kowtowed to it.
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  48. The roots of the problem are deep and go back to the Cold War. The U.S. anti-Communism policy in Central America propped up dictators and destabilized democratic movements for decades. (Before the Cold War, we were also involved in shenanigans to protect American companies doing business in Central America, but the interventions were on a much smaller scale.) The destabilization created by our Cold War policies are a big factor in the current political and social crises in C. America. I’m not saying that the policies were entirely misguided, but I don’t think Eisenhower and Kennedy foresaw the blowback and long term misery that would be caused by our covert activities to prop up dictators. We created the conditions causing millions to flee northward. If we are addressing root causes, how do we clean up the mess we made that is causing people to flee Guatemala and Salvador? 🤷🏻‍♀️ It’s very complicated.
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  49. I hope Sarah does a focus group on the plastic straw issue.
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  50. Jimmy Thompson You need better news sources. The protests have gone on for a long time, but have been 95% peaceful. The Portland authorities were dealing with the 5% non-peaceful without the need for outside help. DHS has a duty and a right to protect Federal property, but the DHS secret police have gone way past that duty, attacking peaceful protestors and snatching citizens off of the streets, sometimes blocks away from the protests. They are stirring up greater protests, which they then answer with greater force. The goal isn’t to contain the protests or end them, it’s to create a spectacle the President can use to boost his failing reelection campaign. If that’s not clear to you, you’re using the wrong sources for news. Escape the echo chamber and think for yourself.
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